February 18, 2012 - Battery Day

This is the 267^th birthday of Alessandro Volta, the Italian guy who invented the battery.

In his honor, we celebrate batteries today!

Batteries store chemical energy and convert it to electrical energy when needed. Since Volta first made a voltaic pile (a primitive battery) with zinc, copper, and cardboard soaked in salt water, batteries have been used in everything from hearing aids and watches to cars and data centers.

By the way, because of Volta's contributions to knowledge about electricity, we call electrical force voltage, and a unit of that force volt.

Celebrate Battery Day!

• Replace your single-use batteries with rechargeable batteries.
  
  
• Find out where to recycle single-use batteries. Consider passing out fliers in your neighborhood reminding people that discarded batteries can poison the environment; set up collection dates when you promise to collect batteries put out by people's front doors, and properly recycle any you collect.
  
  
• Learn about batteries and electricity at Battery Kids. There are lots of projects and experiments to check out!

• 
  Make a lemon battery. 

Also on this date:

Stained-glass artist Louis Comfort Tiffany's birthday 

Anniversary of the invention of the modern vacuum cleaner 

August 27, 2011 - World's Biggest Battery Plugged In

 – 2003

It can get cold in Fairbanks, Alaska. Real cold!

Because a power failure can be so dangerous in an isolated city that experiences extreme weather, Fairbanks ordered a 2,000-square-meter battery that weighs 1,300 metric tonnes. (In U.S. terms, that is more than 21 thousand square feet and more than 1,400 tons.)

On this day in 2003 the city of Fairbanks installed the huge battery in a warehouse outside of town and then plugged it in to the city's electrical system. In the case of a power failure, the battery should kick on and provide power for up to 12,000 residents for up to seven minutes—long enough to start up diesel generators to restore power.

In Fairbanks's low winter temperatures, water pipes could freeze entirely in just two hours. So it is crucial to keep the power on! But when I checked Wikipedia to see how many people live in Fairbanks, it listed 35,000 residents, not 12,000! Who gets the emergency power?